On bookshelves across the country, there are stories about mice and cookies, princesses with long hair and a very hungry caterpillar.
But in Arkansas, thousands of children won’t curl up with a parent in bed and listen to a bedtime story. Instead, they’ll listen to a recording of a family member reading them a story. That’s because 16% of children in Arkansas currently or previously have had a parent or guardian incarcerated — the highest percentage in the nation.
“Families serve a shared sentence with their incarcerated loved ones, so we’re trying to ease, if not break, that cycle,” Denise Chai, the director of outreach for The Storybook Project of Arkansas, told NationSwell.
The Storybook Project of Arkansas saw a place to bridge the gap in both literacy and family connection for children with incarcerated family members. Four times a year, the nonprofit brings books, tape recorders and volunteers into five of Arkansas’ correctional facilities.
There, individuals can record a message and read a book for their family members. Grandmothers will read stories to their grandchildren, fathers will read to their daughters and uncles have the chance to read to their nephews.
“It’s a little piece of the parent at home with them,” Chai said.
In 2019, The Storybook Project of Arkansas reached 1,793 children. The children ranged from infants to high schoolers, and the readers have included aunts, grandmothers and older siblings.
Keeping a connection with incarcerated family members can be a challenge. Prisons aren’t designed for children, and it can cost families time and money to visit facilities. Meanwhile, video conferences and phone calls can quickly become a financial burden on families.
But with Storybook, the parents can partake in their children’s’ lives.
“For the person who’s reading to their children, it’s an opportunity to parent their kids, to play a role in their children’s lives, to be present when they’re not really present,” Chai said. “As they are reading a book to their children, it’s an opportunity to be a good role model.”
Additionally, that continued connection can be one of the keys to success after prison. Studies show that when released individuals have family support, social integration is easier and they’re more likely to find a job and financial stability. A study published in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography found that incarcerated individuals who remained in contact with their family throughout were less likely to reconvict.
Jan Schmittou is one volunteer behind the audio recorder. Schmittou, who has served as a volunteer for over a year, has watched fathers moved to tears and listened to mothers read their favorite fairytales to their children.
Schmittou’s first visit was to the Wrightsville Unit. Schmittou went through the metal detectors, heavy doors and walked through the cement facility.
“Once you get past all of that, the reality is the people there aren’t too much different from you or I,” she told NationSwell.
The nonprofit was launched 21 years ago by founder Pat Oplinger and a few volunteers. It worked with incarcerated individuals in two correctional facilities until 2019, when it expanded to three more.
Chai said that expansion is part of an effort to deepen the work they’re doing. Beyond working in more facilities, the nonprofit has started motivating individuals to “do a little more emotional homework” by sharing more impactful lessons and words of encouragement with their children, Chai said. Most recently, they incorporated a bookmark program where family members can create a bookmark to send to their children.
“We’re a really simple program but we’re always trying to do just a little bit more with what we do and have a little bit more impact,” she said.
The Storybook Project of Arkansas isn’t the only organization to adopt this idea. Groups, like the Women’s Storybook Project of Texas and The Seattle Public Library’s Read to Me Program, have similar goals of keeping families connected.
“It’s such a reassuring and loving message about how much they’re cared for and missed even though the person is physically absent from their lives,” Chai said.
More: For Prisoners, Reading Is so Much More Than a Pastime — It’s a Way to Change Their Lives
Tag: Incarcerated parents
How Hearing Their Parents’ Voices From Behind Prison Walls Helps Children Feel Less Depressed
Hearing a bedtime story before being tucked in at night is often the best way to ensure a child’s peaceful night’s sleep.
However, for the children of incarcerated parents, having a book read by their parents isn’t an option. This sad fact is the reality facing many families in Oklahoma, where 7,701 children have mothers in prison, and 121 women per 100,000 people are incarcerated, compared to the national average of 65.
Enter Redeeming the Family, an Oklahoma nonprofit working to preserve the bond and relationships between parent and child. According to the organization, after a parent is incarcerated, the chances of depression, suicide, poor performance in school and arrest all increase for kids.
That’s exactly why they’ve launched the Oklahoma Messages Program. Under it, volunteers go into prisons and video a mother or father talking to their children or reading them a book. The videos are then sent to the offspring, who can now see their parents for the first time in, what may be, quite a while.
These videos are an important lifeline between individuals because, for children living with their mothers, only 55 percent have visited and only 40 percent have spoken on the phone during incarceration. In its four years of operation, the program has sent videos to more than 3,000 children, 823 in 2013 alone.
These DVDs are really making a difference. Redeeming the Family conducted outcome surveys on the children to gage impact. Initially, 81 percent said that after their parent was imprisoned, they had moderate to huge increases in sadness and depression. Another 84 percent reported moderate to huge spikes in stress and anxiety. After the videos entered the children’s lives, however, 65 percent reported a decrease in feelings of sadness and depression, while 54 percent had less anger and disruptive behavior.
While the videos do not replace the presence of the actual parent, receiving them three times a year — Christmas, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day — can make all the difference. Executive Director of Redeeming the Family Cheri Fuller has witnessed this first hand.
“Over and over, we hear children say it felt like my mother was in the room,” she told NewsOk.
For these children, hearing and seeing their parents is just what’s needed to induce a great night’s sleep.
MORE: When Families are Separated Because of Criminal Acts, This Technology Keeps Everyone Connected